EKG strips on NCLEX

[2bNdNurse84]

I have a question for people who took the Nclex.

When u get EKG's strips... What do they actually want u to know!!?? Like what kind if reading is it? Or how many decimal per beat? Or medication? What is the type of answers they r looking for us

[BerryHappy]

I had a ridiculously easy EKG strip. It was only 1 question and the question was which of the strips showed probable near death. And honestly 3 of the choices varied just a little bit and the 4th choice looked EXACTLY like a crazy scribble line from the children's book Harold and the Purple Crayon! The correct answer was so obvious I truly thought it might have been a trick question and took the longest to answer that one question. Luckily, somewhere I read that there are no "trick questions" on the NCLEX. I must have gotten it right because it was my only EKG question and I passed!

Good luck!

[BorgQueen1701]

You also wanna know med interventions for EKG strips. When to give Lidociane, Atropine, Adenosine and so forth.

[BloomNurseRN, ASN, BSN, RN]

I only had one rhythm strip. Mine was a SATA that asked what symptoms I would expect for that rhythm. I was lucky that we did cardiac in my last semester of school but it really did feel obvious.

Try your best just to look at the basic rhythms - normal sinus, bradycardia, tachycardia, a. fib, v. fib, asystole, v.tach, and flutter. Know what meds you would expect (e.g. warfarin for a patient with a. fib to prevent blood clots/PE), how you would treat (defib for v. fib is a good one to remember) and what symptoms you might expect to see.

So far every I know has had at least one strip, many two. While I don't think it's a make it break issue, I do think spending a couple of hours looking these things over wouldn't hurt. Good luck!